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England pacer Issy Wong has her sights set on the Ashes and believes it is the ideal opportunity to take on an Australian side that may not be as good as it once was.
England will host Australia in the multi-format women's Ashes series from late June, with the teams doing battle in one Test match, three T20Is and three ODIs and the winner to be determined on a points-based system. Wong made her debut in all three formats during South Africa's tour of England last summer and hopes to be part of her team's Ashes campaign, which begins with a five-day Test at Trent Bridge on June 22. "I think it's a pretty good time to play them, you know, just quietly. They are undoubtably, in my opinion, one of the greatest sports teams in history, of any sport, of any gender. Their record over the last 10 years is absolutely outrageous," Wong was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo. Wong was not a member of England's T20 World Cup squad, which lost in the semi-finals to hosts South Africa before Australia won the trophy for the third time in a row. "But it feels like that kind of golden era they've had is... you've had Rach Haynes retiring, [Meg] Lanning stepping away, obviously coming back in ridiculous form, but there's a lot of new faces in that group that are unbelievably talented but haven't necessarily played the biggest part for them over the last couple of years. I think it's a really good time to actually go at them and say, 'right, you are the best team in history, but you've a couple of new faces in here and let's see if you're as good as you were five years ago.' I think it's great time to play. "I've never played them though. I've watched them on the telly a lot, they look great," she added. Part of her thinking about the Australians from her experience in India when she played against a number of her possible Ashes opponents, and she believes that playing with and against them in the Women's Big Bash League (WBBL) will help her. "I've never played them but I don't view them as 'the Australians. They're going to have Beth Mooney and Alyssa Healy opening the batting, Meg Lanning's going to bat at three, then in that middle order you're going to have [Tahlia] McGrath, [Phoenix team-mate Ellyse] Perry, [Grace] Harris. You've played against these guys so much that you get to know them and, not necessarily even know their games, but they're humans at the end of the day and humans do good things and humans do bad things," Wong said. "People say, 'Oh, don't you think it's going to make international cricket less good if David Warner's best mates with Jonny Bairstow because they open the batting for Sunrisers Hyderabad?' I think that's rubbish because actually it's going to make the competition a lot better. You've got these guys playing against people that they know and those are the best battles because each person's having to adapt their game and do things a little bit differently. When they've played against each other a lot, they're working each other out and that's how the game is evolving," Wong added. (ANI)
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